Roses Are Red
by Scarlett Wren
Summary: DG. SemiWIP part 13. Draco reflects on Ginny: loving her, losing her, trying to live without her. He must battle his emotions and finally say goodbye, at a time when he least expected it.


**Roses Are Red**

--Scarlett Wren

A/N: This is the first of a 3-part series that can be read individually. In this part, lyrics from Him's "Vampire Heart" are used.

_"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."_

--Bertrand Russell

He remembers when they found her. He remembers when her death was reported in the papers. That's how he knew. No one else would have bothered to tell him: tell him she was tortured; tell him she was beaten; tell him she was dead. Her family and anyone else who talked about her now used the words "gone" or "passed away", but his heart had beome too hardened over the last 3 years since the war began to sugar coat such a thing as death. She was dead. Not "gone" or "passed away" or "sleeping for eternity". Although it burned him to think the words, although it was easily more tortuous than anything he suffered in the camps, it was the only truth he knew. Ginny Weasley, the one woman, the one person, the one _thing_ he thought about, cared about, loved more himself; Ginny Weasley, who could never become Ginny Malfoy, was dead.

And sometimes he hated her for it.

_Let me breathe you this song of my heart before  
I lead you along this path in the dark  
Where I belong 'till I feel your warmth_

The owl perches on his windowsill, as it does every morning, and waits patiently for him to untie the _Daily Prophet _from its leg. He does so, and absently looks at his calendar. Four days. A small smile twitches at the corner of his lips. Four days and he will see her again; they will be married. He looks to the window again as the bird flies away. Leafing through the pages of the _Prophet_, he sees nothing he hasn't seen before. More blood, more pain, more attempts by the ministry to regain control of Voldemort that have failed. More--

And then he sees it.

A small article on the third page, simply titled, "Death Eater camp liberated, none found alive". He reads on, as the article goes on to describe how an annonomous tip from a Wizard working undercover for the Minisrty led to the discovery of a Death Eater camp, where hundreds of prisoners were kept. The camp was in the dungeons at Hogwart's, long since thought to be deserted. Draco feels he will become sick. _The dungeons at Hogwart's..._ He wills himself to feel nothing more, for he knows nothing more. Turning the page, he scans the list of dead. _None found alive._ No, he pleads with himself, no, she would have gotten out. She's smarter than that, she would have--

It hits him plain as day, searing right through his eyes. Printed there, in standard black ink, as if it were an ordinary thing.

_Ginevra Molly Weasley_.

He blinks twice, once because he cannot believe what he's just read, and once because Draco Malfoy does not cry. Draco Malfoy will not cry over her, she was just a woman. Just a woman, he keeps telling himself, just like Pansy and Flourencia and every other woman he had lost in this war. He had escaped but they had not. It was a simple fact. They were weak while he was strong. He had gotten over them in a matter of days. It would be the same with Ginny. She was just a woman...

But she was, is, so muh more than that, and he knows it.

She kept him sane and kept him close during his last year at Hogwart's, and when they were captured and thrown together with countless others who lacked the will to survive, she kept him strong and willing, willing to endure the pain, the torture, if only for the hope that they would both make it out alive. At first he was afraid of her, afraid to love her, to touch her, to say her name. Love makes a man weak, he was always taught. But she broke through. She listened to him, she held him, she soothed him. And he did love her; he loved her so much that she was the only woman he ever dreamed of marrying, having a family with. Before her he was cold, just as grey as his eyes on the inside. He was selfish, uncaring, brooding and moody. But after her, after her warmth and her love, he was gentle and softened, only for her but it was still a change. He cared so deeply for her that he gave her his clothing and covered her with what little body heat he had on frigid winter nights. That was new to him, that carnal desire to do anything in his power so she might live, even if it literally meant starving or freezing to death.

_Hold me  
Like you held on to life  
When all fears came alive and entombed me  
Love me  
Like you love the sun  
Scorching the blood in my vampire heart_

Now all he wants is her, her passion, her warmth, her need for him, her _life_. He wants to lay with her on his bed and tell her stories from his childhood, and listen to her stories, and talk of their future, their children; and when she gets weak or tired she can fall asleep in his arms, for hours or even days, and he would give her life energy from the power she instilled inside him.

All he wants is her, but for the first time in his life he can't have what he wants. She's dead, and he hates her for it.

_I'll be the thorns on every rose  
You've been sent I hope (You'll grow cold)  
I am the nightmare waking you up  
From the dream of a dream of love (Just like before)_

He hates her for it, for dying, although he knows that's stupid even as he is feeling it. He hates her for loving him, loving him so unconditionally that he loved her in return. He hates her for leaving him. She made him a whole new person, and new man, with love and compassion waiting to be given to woman he loves. But she's dead. Now what will become of this new man? this whole man that was reborn from the ashes like a phoenix? Who will he give all of his love to, for he can never love again, the very thought makes him ache. She, like an artist, molded him, sculpted him, painted him, made him beautiful, and then she left him on a shelf to crack and crumble, turn to ash once more.

Now he had no reason to live. As he sits in his office, still clutching the rumpled paper, he wants to run. Run from the house he bought for their new lives together, run from the bedroom at the end of the hall, run from the bed it held with the softest of sheets and pillows, run from the dress robes hanging in the closet that he would have worn in four days to their wedding. Run from the pain, run from the memories, the hate, the lies, the love. But there is no where to go.

Sometimes he wishes it would have been different, that she was taken away from the camp and he had stayed there and died. Then, when she felt helpless and alone and without a reason to live, then she, at least, would have family. he has no one.

Finally, he stops blinking. He lets a tear fall. He knows she is not just another woman, she never was. He watches as the tear falls from his cheek, landing on the paper in his hands, blurring the word "tortured". Another one falls, this time blurring "painful" and "death". More and more tears fall, until he can no longer control them or count them, and they erase more and more words from the paper until the only thing readable is "Ginny Weasley". And he sobs. He falls to the floor and crumples around himself. He cries and screams and begs--Draco Malfoy begs-- for someone, someone in the Heavens, to bring her back, just for a moment, just so he can see her, touch her, say goodbye, tell her he loves her, tell her he doesn't hate her. That's all he wants. All he wants is her.

_Let me weep you this poem as Heaven's gates close  
Paint you my soul, scarred and alone  
Waiting for your kiss to take me back home_

At her funeral, he sits in the back. He keeps his head covered with a hooded dark green robe. The dress robes he would have been wearing to a different occasion today, their wedding. In his hand he holds delicately a single-stemmed rose, freshly cut and strongly-scented. He looks at no one during the service, just down into his lap, at the rose. It was the deepest red he could find, and reminded him of her. She was fiery, feisty, a red-headed mass of curls with a temper. And yet, she was gentle. Gentle and caring and loving and wonderful. So much like a rose with its thorns. She hurt him, but she healed him. And he loved her for it.

He waits until everyone else left the chapel, until everyone else had cried over her casket and weeped goodbye, and then he stands. He makes his way to where her coffin rests, with flowers adorning its base, but none on top. He stumbles as he looks at nothing but where she rests. When he reaches her, he collapses before the casket and buries his head in the fold of his robes.

"We were supposed to be married today, Ginny," he says in a weak voice. "But now look where we are. I never wanted to be here, Gin, at least not until we had lived our whole lives together." His voice quivers. "I just want to hold you, to hold your hand, to kiss you. I wanted to be there when you died, I wanted to hold you and comfort you, but I failed. I broke my promise. You were alone, weren't you?" He can't bear the weight of it any longer. He begins to sob.

"I'm so sorry. I love you."

After a moment he wipes off his face with his robes, and stands up, his lip still quivering, his body still shaking. He picks up the rose, the rose for _his_ rose, and lays it atop her coffin. A tear lands on one of the petals, and he kisses the flower, lingering only a moment, trying to pretent the silky-soft petals are her lips.

_Hold me  
Like you held on to life  
When all fears came alive and entombed me  
Love me  
Like you love the sun  
Scorching the blood in my vampire heart_

All he wants is her.


End file.
